Blood of the Daedra
by Crisium
Summary: A series of one-shots about what Daedric artifacts can do to the lives of mortals.
1. Azura's Star

Disclaimer: The Elder Scrolls obviously don't belong to me. They belong to Bethesda, naturally.

The following chapters will be a series of one-shots about the Daedric artifacts, and the way those artifacts meddle in the lives of the people lucky- or unlucky- enough to come across them.

To kick off the series: Azura's Star.

* * *

It was an accident, he swore. He'd loved that dog- had had him since he was a straggly gray pup, starving in the alley and whimpering in the folds of his cloak when he'd taken him home to his wife and girls. He'd only been a few years from retirement then and the dog had been at his side since the day he'd left the guard forever.

He'd never have done it on purpose.

But on a walk from his little homestead into Cheydinhal, they'd been attacked- a wolf, a gray one, half as big as a bear. The dog leapt to defend his master, and with the instincts borne of long years of training the retired guard readied his old enchanted sword- the one he hadn't used in years, the one that used to keep him flush in soul gems to sell on the side for extra money- and he'd struck.

He aimed for the wolf.

He killed the dog.

It was an accident.

But he heard the familiar _rasp-hiss_ of the spell, felt something in the pocket of his old robe glow for a moment with stolen energy. After he managed to hurt the wolf bad enough that it ran off yowling, he'd picked up the crumpled body of his faithful friend and carried him back home to bury beneath the flowers in his wife's garden.

It was months before he wore that robe again, and so months before he discovered it, still tucked away where he'd put it years ago- Azura's Star, earned in a moment of heroic stupidity almost thirty years before. He turned it over in his hands when he found it, watching the way light glinted off the edges, the way it seemed to glow from within. He hadn't remembered leaving it full. Sometimes he'd trap the souls of lions or imps and they'd rage inside their gems, but this was different. This felt… friendly.

Familiar.

It was his dog, he realized with dawning horror. He'd trapped the soul of his _dog_. But when he spoke the dog's name the Star only seemed to glow happily, and so he took to carrying it in his pocket every day, stroking it idly like he'd once stroked the shaggy ears of his pet. The soul in the Star seemed content. As for him- well. He'd been sick with guilt and had missed the old mutt- and certainly something was better than nothing.

Until the Star disappeared.

He'd known that it wasn't really his- that Azura could take it back at any time. But it had been _thirty years_, and now it was gone and his dog was _still in there_ and he tore up his house in a frenzied search, hoping against hope he'd just dropped it somewhere.

He hadn't.

But old dogs have a way of finding their masters.

Fifteen years passed, and even though his wife protested that he was too old for such things he'd insisted on accompanying his youngest daughter when she'd wanted to visit a friend in a little town south of Cheydinhal. He'd been a guard, he reminded his wife. He knew what he was doing.

And they would have been fine if the weather hadn't been so horrible, if the terrain hadn't been icy and the blowing snowstorm that barreled over the mountains hadn't taken them by surprise. They missed Cheydinhal entirely, drifting off the road and too far east, and by the time he realized they were much too far _south_, too, it was dark.

He'd left her with the horses in the shelter of a thick stand of oaks, heading for a campfire he could barely make out in the distance. Only, he saw as he got closer, it didn't seem to be a camp. A cave, more likely, with some kind of stone table outside, white against the shadows and draped in- red? It looked like red.

Which is how the band of necromancers found him, lost and half-frozen, and though he'd tried to bargain and plead with them it was no use. There was the ring of an enchanted blade being drawn, the sickening lurch of it as it drove into his body, and then-

Two very different sensations.

The blade, still lodged in him, mournful as it cut him down with a familiar _rasp-hiss_ and enchanted with the howling soul of his dog.

The enchantment, created from the dog-soul _he'd_ trapped, drawing his essence out of his flesh, sucking all the life that had once been him into a crystalline prison as his body fell away into the snow.

_I'm sorry_, he tried to tell his dog before everything went dark and his soul was locked away in the black gem.

If there was an answer, he didn't hear it.


	2. Wabbajack

He was one of the brightest minds of his generation. Everyone knew it; he'd been told so since he was a child in the Mage's Guild, summoning daedra with ease and plumbing the tangled depths of mysticism while other children wasted time running after butterflies and whispering to each other in classes.

He was going to do great things someday. Tomorrow, if he could schedule them in.

But it was difficult being so brilliant. To know without doubt that even his closest peers couldn't hope to understand him. To know that his skills outstripped those of his supervisors, his teachers. It made him… unpopular. Which was regrettable, but hardly relevant. With all his studies, it's not as though he had time for friendships, for relationships, for long walks holding hands with anyone under the star-strewn sky.

He was aware, though, that even though he had a brilliant mind he had never outgrown his lanky awkwardness, and every time he tripped over the hem of his robe or didn't notice the smudges of ink on his face his peers were laughing at him.

Sometimes, someday couldn't seem to come fast enough.

He knew, though, he was bound for greatness, and he would achieve something wonderful and then everyone would know.

That's what he wanted, really. For everyone to _know_, without doubt, of his brilliance. He would make Arch-Mage someday, he was sure.

And everything was going _just_ _fine_, thank you, until he was transferred to Leyawiin.

He hated Leyawiin. There were bugs _everywhere_ and they always seemed to fly up the sleeves of his robes and bite him so he scratched everywhere he went and the whole city smelled like fish and bile. But when he mentioned how terrible the city smelled the locals seemed to take it as a personal insult and so when he stumbled over a tree root growing on the side of the road- and what respectable city would have streets in such disrepair?- he fell into a puddle of slimy mud and the beggars watched and laughed.

He really hated Leyawiin.

Especially when he got volunteered to go retrieve, of all things, a Daedric artifact. He wasn't some dirty-fingered adventurer or some debased, crawling daedra worshipper. He was a _scholar_, and a mage, and a damned good one. This, this… _quest_… was a waste of his time.

He made sure everyone _knew_ that it was a waste of time.

He still had to go.

Which is how he got ushered out the city gates with a knapsack of yarn and lettuce and perfectly good soul gems to offer some mad Daedra who probably wouldn't answer any sort of summons anyway.

It _rained_ the whole way to the shrine.

But at least when he got there things started looking up- his offering was accepted without any difficulty and Lord Sheogorath seemed much more reasonable than he'd been expecting.

Oh, no, he'd been assured. You won't have to kill anyone. Or slay any monsters. You've not even the spark of madness in you- you'll hardly have to get your hands dirty at all.

And it was a fair distance to walk to the town, but at least the Prince of Madness had been _civil_, which was more than he could say for his guildmates and neighbors.

Border Watch was as ridiculous as you'd expect for a town full of Khajiit, hissing and growling at each other when he began asking questions, but the quest itself had been rather fun. Granted, the rats were disgusting, but the irony of watching a town of overgrown cats squeal in fear at the sight of rats had been entertaining. The sheep had gobbled up their poison dutifully, looking dumbly surprised as they stiffened and keeled over, and he probably shouldn't have laughed but he did anyway. The burning dogs falling from the sky, though- that was a bit much.

At least he got his artifact when he got back to the shrine, leaning on it like a walking-stick all the way to Leyawiin.

His superior had seemed surprised to see him back so quickly, particularly in possession of the Wabbajack and all of his wits. But it was a good day. He'd accomplished another assignment and surely he'd be promoted for it, and that was just one more rung on the ladder to prominence.

Or rather, it would have been if he hadn't tripped.

And really, he would have been fine if he'd just _tripped_, but as he was a mage and a scholar he attempted to catch himself.

With magicka.

Only- he was holding the Wabbajack at the time. And so the spell he would have cast only ended up activating the Wabbajack while he was falling down the stairs.

It had ended up pointing at him, though he didn't even have time to be afraid- one moment he was an Altmer in travel-stained robes, and the next…

The next moment, the entire Leyawiin Mage's Guild was given the rare treat of watching a rather confused sheep tumble down the stairs.

If they'd liked him, perhaps, one of them might have taken pity on him and tried to use the Wabbajack again, but when S'drassa pointed out that a sheep was about as docile a creature as they could expect from using the Wabbajack, and that they couldn't be _sure_…

Well. Certainly no one had ever heard of the Wabbajack being turned on its _user_. Who knew what might happen to the poor… er… mage… if they tried to interfere with the spell?

And really, the sheep did look very happy nosing at the bowl of apples on the table. And the spell didn't seem to be wearing off, did it?

So no one did anything, except herd the sheep out to the stable, where he seemed… happy.

For a sheep.

And so one of the brightest minds of the Mage's Guild lived as a sheep and spent the rest of his life in the stable, where he ate hay and clover and watched the wind blow through the grasses, and the horses whickered at him and no one laughed at him ever, ever again.

Except Sheogorath.


	3. Skeleton Key

If only she hadn't been so _hungry_.

But it was something she'd grown up with, grown used to- the raking of hunger down her insides, the feeling of not being really _here_, and certainly none of the guards had ever taken notice of a beggar's bastard daughter.

_She _noticed everything, though. Every time the guard captain got drunk, every party Voranil threw, every time the vampire came out for a walk in the middle of the night and every new person that passed through the gates of Cheydinhal.

And it's not as though the Champion of Cyrodiil had been _subtle_.

He'd been denied entrance to one of those parties and his temper had gotten ugly, and he'd pounded on the doors of Riverview shouting curses. But Voranil was famous for his snobbery, and when bellowing didn't work the Champion had pulled something from his pocket, a curved little thing that made quick work of the lock.

She'd seen lockpicks before. This was something different, and though she'd only caught a glimpse of the beautiful little thing, she wanted it immediately. More than anything she'd ever _known_ she wanted that lockpick, just to hold it, just for a minute.

Though she couldn't have explained why, she was sure it wanted _her_, too.

And so even though it was raining cold and miserable, she waited around, her stomach growling at the delicious smells wafting from the house. The guards ignored her as she listened to the Champion bellow his way through the party, bawling out the poor Altmer who hadn't known what he'd be getting into by snubbing a convicted felon with more power than sense. When the Champion had finally had enough he'd burst back through the doors, trudging through the mud with a mood as stormy as the skies.

And the lockpick was _sticking out of his pocket_.

He walked right by her, muttering curses and completely unaware of her, and though she had no skill whatsoever at pickpocketing it had been all too easy to slip her skinny fingers around it and tug.

A small miracle: he walked away, unaware, and the little lockpick was in her hands, glittering with promise and lovelier than any jewel.

But the guards had chosen that one moment in her entire life to take notice of her, and even as she exclaimed softly over her prize they were coming for her, weapons readied and shouting for her to surrender.

She didn't.

She fled, gripping the lockpick tightly. The guards thought of the city as merely streets and buildings but she knew differently, and so when she ducked around a corner and wriggled through a dog-tunnel that led outside the city wall the guards didn't even see her go.

She was free, and it was hers.

When she turned it over in her hands it seemed to shine, and she didn't really know what it _was_ but even a blind man would have known it was special.

She hadn't _ever _had anything special before.

But other concerns were pressing, now- it was cold and raining and getting dark, and since it wasn't safe to go back into the city yet she headed for an abandoned fort she could see up the hill.

The trapdoor had been a surprise. She'd almost hoped it was locked so she could use her new lockpick, but it had swung open soundlessly, and at the bottom-

A room. A little creepy, maybe, but no one was home and it got her out of the rain.

More than a little creepy, she realized, looking around- was that a _heart _on the table? She really should go. She started back up the rope ladder and was halfway up before she caught the scent, alluring and red and like nothing she'd ever smelled before, and her stomach twisted with a demanding hunger.

The fascinating scent was coming from a locked barrel, making her mouth water even as she bit her lip with indecision.

She really _should_ go.

But her pretty lockpick was right there and begging to be used, and the scent drifting out of the barrel was juicy and compelling. It took barely any effort at all to pick the lock, and when she laughed in delight when the tumblers came free the lockpick seemed to laugh, too.

And inside the barrel- apples, rich and red, more of them than she could eat in a day and smooth under her fingers when she reached in, sweet on her tongue when she took a bite.

By the time the assassin returned to his lair the beggar girl had been dead for days, a poisoned apple still clutched in her hand, and with a shrug he'd given her over to the rest of the fort, her bones becoming just another skeleton enchanted to guard his privacy.

And by that time, the Skeleton Key had already found its way into the sticky fingers of another thief, opening things that should have stayed closed and laughing all the while.


	4. Skull of Corruption

There were definite advantages to being a witch.

First off, she'd never been surprised by the odd bit of magicka doing odd things.

Second, she'd never been exactly helpless.

It helped that she'd had centuries of witch-blood in her veins and had been afflicted from girlhood with that damnable Breton need to poke her nose into things.

The way she figured, a little bit of curiosity was good for the soul.

Not always all that good for one's _lifespan_, mind. But it made that span of life more interesting.

And curiosity had led her more than once into solving problems in… unconventional ways.

There was only one problem that marred her life now.

Mostly, things were good- she'd grown old and happy in a little farmhouse in the Nibenay Basin, gardening and tending stock and brewing the odd potion of permanent silence or Bosmer banishing. Even found a man she could stand the sight of, and she'd lived with him nigh on thirty years in comfortable companionship.

But the man was the problem, now.

Not that he wasn't a dear- he was. But he was getting old. And when men get old, they complain.

And there's no cure in the world for a complaining old man.

Not that he was complaining without _reason_, mind- their little farm hadn't gotten any smaller over the years, and the man's knees hadn't gotten any younger, and every day that passed and he came in aching from toil he told her it was time- they were too old for this sort of thing. Time to move to the city.

The witch didn't want to move.

She didn't want to deal with neighbors coming over and stomping her strawberries or poking their noses in her kettle or asking why she had a skull on her mantle. She wasn't a very _neighborly_ person.

But her man wasn't getting any younger.

It nagged at her for most of a season, and harvest was nearly there by the time she came to a decision.

Finding a black soul gem hadn't been any trouble at all- she'd found one in the bottom of an old chest along with a couple of harpy feathers and lamia scales. Once she'd had it dusted off and her sun bonnet tied on- because it wouldn't do to get sunburned on her way to speak with a Daedra- she set off, kissing her man on the top of his bald head.

Vaermina had been her kind of Daedra. Not mad with silliness like Sheogorath or full of himself like Sanguine or too snotty to do any talking like Azura. Vaermina had taken the black gem with few words, giving her just a nudge in the right direction.

And the witch had gone, with no more thought than she would have given a pleasure stroll. The wizard's tower hadn't been difficult at all- when a clannfear had charged at her all puffed up and screechy, she'd just summoned a daedroth, and the big lumbering thing hadn't just knocked the clannfear away but walked at her side like a big, scaly dog until she'd made her way to the orb. As for the dungeon- well. It was the wizard's nightmare, not hers, and in any case it took more than a few dead bodies and some oversized furniture to scare a witch.

She'd gone back to the shrine, whistling, and had made it home with the Skull of Corruption before dinner.

Her man had looked at her a bit askance, then, but after thirty years he'd learned not to ask questions he didn't _really_ want the answers to.

The next morning when she showed him what she'd had in mind he thought the entire thing a very fine idea and kissed her for her cleverness.

They sat together on the front porch and he whittled while she shelled peas, the Skull resting light against her knee. Ever so often she'd use it on her man- he swore it only tickled a little- and when the copy of him sputtered to life all full of energy and ready to fight, she'd toss a couple of spells its way- one to calm it, and one to command it- and once it was all nice and docile she'd send it out to the garden and tell it to get to work.

And it worked- the old man never had to spend a day on his hands and knees again, digging in the dirt with a broken-down body. And the witch didn't have to listen to her man complain or talk about moving to the city anymore. Sure, shelling peas took a little bit longer with her having to stop to cast spells once in a while- but then, she had all the time in the world, now.

There were advantages to being a witch, after all. Spells she could cast all the day long, but those potatoes weren't going to dig themselves.


	5. Spellbreaker

He was an adventurer from a long line of adventurous men, and he grew up strong and brave and ready to take on any foe the wilds of Tamriel had to throw at him. His sword and shield earned his living, keeping him armored and fed and clothed—but not rich. On his ventures into town he was an unknown, just another roving wanderer making his living off the land, renting beds he'd never own.

The hunger to be more ate at him, gnawed on his insides in the middle of the night.

He watched the bright-robed sorcerers flit in and out of the Mages Guild like gaudy birds, watched townsfolk shy out of the way and tip their heads in respect—and for what? For the sake of a spell or two? It wasn't honest work, magicka, it didn't come from the heart and brawn of a man to get things done.

Still, the townsfolk made way for the mages, and scowled at the adventurer like he was one more cur in a kennel.

He'd had enough of anonymity, he decided on a sweltering afternoon between one place and another. There'd been stories, of course, passed down from his father and grandfather, of more famous forbears—men who'd slain monstrous trolls, men who'd brought rebellions to heel, men who'd braved the wilds and returned with treasure from all the forgotten places of the world.

And the best: men who'd bargained with Daedra, and come out the victors.

It was time to make a name for himself, to take his place with his storied ancestors.

Finding a Daedra to bargain with was easy enough. The Taskmaster was a natural choice for a man looking for a task, and the charge Peryite set him was simple work for a man raised on battle and blood. With his quest completed, the dragon-Daedra seemed pleased.

The adventurer hoisted Spellbreaker upon his arm and felt his own destiny change.

No more was he a nameless mercenary scraping a living out of bandit caves and abandoned forts. With the great dwarven shield on his arm he felt invincible, unstoppable. It drew stares in the cities, gleaming like the sun.

And of course it thwarted mages quite handily, and the adventurer didn't mind that at all.

When the city guard and Fighters Guild had run up against a band of rogue sorcerers and come out the losers, the adventurer stepped in. He smirked to himself in private glee at the feel of Spellbreaker at work, of magicka breaking upon the shield, reflecting back to the casters in deadly waves.

The adventurer was victorious, the notorious sorcerers slain, and though the city went wild with gratitude, it wasn't _enough_.

Spellbreaker made for a good start, to be sure, but the adventurer was certain he could do better. From the spoils of the felled sorcerers he amassed a modest fortune, and though he had to bite his tongue to do it he walked through the over-carved door of the Mages Guild and asked after enchantments.

It took a year—special-made enchanted items were dear, and hard to craft—but before the old wizard at the Guild passed on he'd made the adventurer enough trinkets to stop any spell that came at him.

He really was unstoppable then, he could feel it. The more he killed mages, the more invincible he felt; the more they ran from him, their magicka useless, entirely reflected, the more they seemed like animals instead of people.

It was no different than hunting deer, or wolves, except that deer were faster, and wolves didn't carry tinkling pouches of gold and precious gems when they fled.

Only one thing troubled him, in the years that came after: Spellbreaker.

Not the shield itself. Spellbreaker was the cornerstone of all his victory, instantly recognizable to every friend and foe that looked his way.

But Daedra were notorious for taking back their gifts even more readily than they gave them, and the adventurer couldn't bear to let Spellbreaker go.

The fear of its loss nibbled at his brain like a rat through a rope. Little by little his confidence frayed, until finally he returned to the Mages Guild. If Spellbreaker could be stolen from him, he would be ready; he would weigh himself down with enough enchanted jewelry to make up for its loss, well in advance.

But by then the Mages Guild had heard of his exploits in killing their kind. The mages pushed him outside before he could draw steel and locked the door behind him, peering out at him with scowling faces from the windows. When the adventurer traveled to a different city, he found the situation much the same.

His story had been told and told again, and now it bound his hands.

But every day that passed was one more in which Spellbreaker might be taken, and he held to the shield every waking moment on his search. The mages turned him away in Leyawiin and in Chorrol, in Anvil and Skingrad, and more and more he feared that he would rise one morning and Spellbreaker would be gone. He slept with it bound to his arm all the way to Bravil, and staggered into the Mage's Guild there unkempt and unshaven, victim of too much worry and too little sleep.

The mages at Bravil didn't turn him away.

With the most profound relief of his life the adventurer paid his gold and drifted back outside, the promise of _tomorrow_ as sweet as music to his ears. Tomorrow they'd have an array of enchantments for him; tomorrow it wouldn't matter if Spellbreaker vanished in the blink of an eye.

The adventurer never saw tomorrow.

He never saw the assassin's arrow, either, though it stuck in his chest all the same, fletched in the bright blue and gold of the Mages Guild—or maybe it wasn't. Everything had gone grey and red and a clamoring darkness invaded the edges of his vision even as he wavered in the street, too shocked for pain, the arrow embedded in his flesh as neatly as betrayal.

The chapel, he thought, with blood trickling away from his dying brain.

Bravil's chapel was cool on the inside and smelled of the river, but there were healers gathered around the altar and slotted between the pews. They rushed over at his entrance, chapel-robes dull as sparrow-wings, exclaiming as he collapsed.

The first wave of healing magicka reflected off of Spellbreaker without making it to the adventurer's body, and so did the second and then the third. "Sir," the pretty healer pleaded, tugging at the shield on his arm to rid him of the enchantment. But the adventurer couldn't let it go, even now; his grip was tight as ever and the metal bit down into the meat of his arm even as his bloodless fingers went numb. They wouldn't take it, he thought feverishly, no one would take it, no man or god or Daedra—

The adventurer died surrounded by priests, stricken by a wound any one of them could've healed. When the bewildered priests buried him and committed his soul to the gods, they gave him a rich man's funeral, tucking his body carefully into Bravil's swampy ground with every one of his fine enchanted things.

All except for Spellbreaker, which vanished when no one was looking.


End file.
